Southampton
by Sunruner
Summary: Hetanic. Alfred didn't even want her to make port in New York; she'd make all the other ships feel shabby and second-rate. He'd have to build something better when he got home to top Arthur's mighty Queen! If only four days later she hadn't... FrUKUS because it's my ship and it'll sail if I want to.
1. Chapter 1

**My Heart Will Go On, "Nearer, to Thee, My Lord". **

**Written because I made the sorry mistake of looking up the Hetalia/Titanic Doujin (Hetanic!) on Youtube, which was set to music. I'm a fan of that song anyways so it was a terrible, terrible combination. **

**This is NOT a parody of the film, it's just headcanon about what it would have been like for two of our favourite nations to be on board. It's also a 2-shot, but I haven't finished the second part yet and I'm a bit busy with my other commitments right now. I just figure, if I have this one finished, I might as well go ahead and upload it, right?**

* * *

_**Southampton**_

It had been Alfred's first trip to London in nearly two hundred years. His first time staying in Arthur's city, visiting Arthur's house- a grand old residence in London Town, something to reflect his status in the world. It had been tense a lot of the time, and uncomfortable for more of it, but good. All in all, the United States of America was willing to admit that it was time for things to start getting better between himself and the British Empire. It had been a century since their last war, and fifty years since Alfred's civil war; it was time for things to improve.

And Arthur, as far as he could tell, wanted the same thing. Why else would his former brother have provided them both with first-class tickets on his new ship once the visit was over? They'd argued about it of course, not over whether or not Alfred would accept the ticket (dude, how could he not?), but things like whether the four-stacked behemoth was really taller than Alfred's tallest building- which was supposed to be taller than _Arthur's _tallest building, hence the arguing. Even after a tour of her insides Alfred refused to acknowledge that she was "Unsinkable", but it was more because of Arthur's constant crooning than any flaws in the engineering.

But damn if she wasn't beautiful. Alfred wasn't sure he even wanted her to make port in New York, she'd probably make all the other ocean liners feel shabby and second-rate. He'd have to build something better when he got home. Yes yes, something to top Arthur's mighty Queen.

They departed from Southampton, a town just a few miles south of London, and sailed across the channel to Cherbourg in northern France. Arthur was usually miserable to travel with, fastidious and snippy and peculiar about timing and etiquette, but he was quite animated when they stopped for passengers. From their perch up high on one of the gorgeous observation decks, the American and his British host looked down and saw one particular Frenchman waving up at them from the docks down below. Francis kept shouting at them from his little patch of earth, but there was no way for them to hear him and Alfred just laughed as Arthur made a great show of pretending he was trying to listen

"A little louder, Frog! What's that? Something wrong with the ticket you say?" An angry telegram written in complex French reached them that night as they made their way to one final European stop in Ireland. Alfred watched Arthur read it and chuckle cruelly in their shared cabin, the Empire finally explaining that instead of sending Francis a ticket, he'd given the French Republic a clever forgery that had nearly resulted in his arrest.

Alfred had to admit, he didn't mind Arthur's sneaky little laugh and sparkling eye when it was aimed at someone else. The way it made his lips curl and his face light up was charming, something he'd missed after an uncomfortable century and a half of isolation. Arthur also seemed to have his drinking under control too, refusing to touch a drop of sherry or brandy or anything more potent than seltzer water or tea in the ballroom. They danced with the beautiful women under the crystal lights and as the dinner parties carried on every evening, Arthur would stand with him on the sweeping staircases and point out who was who and what they did.

It was good business, these ships. For the luxury of enjoying one the rich from America and Britain swapped stories, ideas, and most importantly: money. Investments were explored, plans hatched, relationships established, and all sorts of good business and capitol decisions were made.

Arthur's sister wasn't waiting for them in Queenstown, but their stop in Ireland was also Arthur at his least pleasant. It reminded Alfred of all the reasons why he was glad that Arthur would be heading north to visit Matthew when they arrived in New York, not staying with him in America. He was still the British Empire, he was still an ass, he was still a huge pain to travel with, and there were still a lot of reasons why Alfred was hesitant to leap into any of those big trade deals or investment options. Europe was a crotchety old place, and England was one of the crotchetiest.

"You do realize that that isn't a word." See? Crotchety.

But it was... fun. Getting past Arthur's insistence on proper table manners (who seriously needed four different forks at dinner?), and forgiving his constant chastisement over Alfred's volume (but the dining room was loud! He could barely hear himself!), and just plain ignoring some of the other things ("What's with your eyebrows?" "S-Shut up!")... it was fun. It was really, really fun.

"I love you, man..."

"Alfred you're drunk." _Yep!_ But it was fun, it was all really, reaaaally fun.

"S'good stuff!" And all the sherry and the brandy and the whatever he'd had was an excuse, three days after the European coast vanished, to throw his arms around someone he'd missed a hell of a lot more than he'd ever admit while sober. When he felt Arthur very carefully return the hug, it just made the younger nation feel misty-eyed and hang on a bit tighter around the Englishman's throat.

"What are you doing?" The Crotchety British Empire asked, but neither of them let go.

"_Lovin' you!"_ He slurred back, grinning a grin he knew looked stupid, but Arthur couldn't see it and Alfred pushed his face against his former-brother-gonna-be-friends-again friend's neck. He still smelled like pipe-smoke and tea leaves, but he was still just a bit shorter than Alfred was, and that made it harder for Arthur to drag him back inside and away from the evening air that had encouraged him to drink so much so fast. It wasn't legal in his country for someone with his face to drink, so he'd taken advantage on Arthur's ship.

"Hush now, you're going to embarrass us both." The _"hush now"_ was reinforced with a gentle hand on the back of his head, and Alfred didn't know whether to be upset that he was being treated like a little kid, or comforted by the warmth that made it okay to keep his face down where it was against Arthur's collar.

Arthur was shorter than him, but stronger- or at least misleadingly strong given what he looked like. The British Empire succeeded in dragging him all the way back to their cabin, and America's only regret was that when he was dropped back on his bed and felt Arthur's hands removing his clothes, those fingers stopped as soon he was down to his shirt and pants.

"I've really missed ya..." It was really wrong for him to think that way, but what could he do? The kiss on his forehead belonged to a child, but Alfred just closed his eyes in the dark and felt better.

"Get some rest, you git." Things were getting better... between them. "We're barely half-way there." But getting better...

* * *

So Arthur was crotchety and demanding, and finicky and proper, and condescending and presumptuous, and teasing and superior, and a hundred other things.

"Arthur."

Arthur was a lot of negative, annoying, frustrating things.

"Arthur wake up."

He was the British Empire for god's sake.

"Arthur please, just get in the boat."

But that didn't mean Alfred wanted him to die.

"_Women and children first! First-class men next!"_

"Arthur snap out of it!"

He'd been strange at dinner; distant, distracted, mild-mannered. Alfred had danced with a few pretty partners, lovely ladies with pearls and diamonds and glowing smiles, but Arthur had been sultry at their table and kept constantly looking at the doors. He'd almost accused him of drinking again, but a casual sip of Arthur's seltzer and lime when he wasn't looking had confirmed that the Empire was completely sober.

He'd left the dining hall to send a telegram, saying something about possible trouble in London, but when he came back he was no better for having gone. They went outside for air and Arthur had been distracted by the view.

"It's a very nice view," the Empire had remarked, worrying the Union with his quiet voice and wandering eyes. "Nothing blocking it. You'd think... for a ship this size... there would be more..."

"More what?"

"...Nothing."

Lifeboats.

He'd meant that for a ship this size you'd expect there would be more lifeboats. Alfred hadn't picked up on it at the time, but he should have. It was unseasonably cold for this late in April, or at least it felt like it, and he should have thought of something. He should have said or done something. They were travelling under the names Arthur Kirkland and Alfred F. Jones, but it was a British ship and the British Empire had more experience on the open ocean than the ship's entire crew combined. If Alfred had pushed him, maybe Arthur could have done something.

Instead, they'd been sitting in their cabin, Alfred worrying with a glass of sherry in his hand, Arthur distracted and growing more and more anxious, when suddenly they heard the noise.

They'd heard the noise and they'd felt the engines stop rumbling. After four days on a liner you stopped hearing them, the turbines and generators that powered the vessel. You stopped feeling them under your feet or hear them burring in your ears when you tried to sleep. But then they stopped, and everything was entirely too quiet after that.

They'd searched the upper decks together, noticing people in night caps and dressing gowns wandering absently, peering out of their rooms before deciding it was nothing and returning to their beds. Arthur had encouraged this, he hadn't wanted to cause a stir, but when they'd turned to head into restricted areas reserved only for the crew, Arthur had made him stay behind.

When he came back down from the bridge, Alfred heard the news, and he watched his former-brother-gonna-be-friends-again-crotchety-old-mentor mechanically begin knocking on cabin doors and waking up disgruntled passengers. There was no panic in him, not at the surface, but his green eyes refused to come back into focus and his voice, although constant, never rose above a quiet murmur.

Two hours later Arthur still wasn't panicking, but he'd stopped helping the relief efforts, too stunned by watching too many precious lifeboats plunge into the ocean with only a fraction of their seats filled. They were both dressed, Arthur having taken great pains to put on his bowler-hat and scarf, his tie neat under his chin and his long coat and gloves protecting him from the midnight wind. But he was still tumbling numbers in his mind, and Alfred couldn't stand his murmurs.

"Twenty lifeboats. Sixty seats. Twenty-two hundred people on board and only twelve hundred-"

"_Arthur!_" He shoved a gentleman's flask into the Englishman's hand, the cap already twisted off before he forced the metal rim to Arthur's lips. It was better than screaming at him: yelling only disturbed the frightened crowd and made it hard for the quartet next to them to keep playing for the benefit of the damned. And it was better than shaking Arthur, because that wasn't working. And if he punched him Alfred knew the crowd would turn on him, because there was no escape and they knew it and they'd go down fighting if they thought it would give them the smallest sense of agency.

Arthur resisted the alcohol until it actually entered his mouth, then Alfred stopped forcing it and he let the gentleman go, watching him swallow the liquid. He choked on the burn but didn't stop drinking, eyes closed as he drained the contents all at once. It was greedy, it was bad form, it was a bunch of things Arthur hated, but for all his hard work he barely coughed as he pulled the flask away and handed it back. He gasped once, swallowing a few times while Alfred watched a few beads of wet cling to the other man's lashes, but the tears didn't fall and he wouldn't open his eyes so Alfred could see what was going on in his head. Arthur didn't want to see what was happening around them, he was feeling it all a lot worse than Alfred could imagine.

But he knew. Just because he couldn't imagine it didn't mean he didn't know.

"C'mon, we have to get on those lifeboats-"

"Are you bloody insane?" Arthur asked him, his voice a long, rough exhale as he looked up. "Lifeboat? Absolutely not. I'm not getting on one of those damned things." At least the alcohol loosened his tongue. It was the most Arthur'd said to him in two hours.

"Arthur this is serious-"

"Don't tell me it's serious!" He abruptly shouted, and a young man standing not far from them burst into harsh, raspy tears before vanishing into the cold dark. "I'll float all the way back to Southampton- I'll let that Irish Princess fish me out of the ocean before I let you try and lecture _me_ on what this-"

Alfred hugged him. It wasn't the most masculine thing he could do, but it shut Arthur up and stopped him from saying anything that would put him over the edge. He didn't hug back, he just stood there rigid and shaking in the cold, his face down on Alfred's shoulder as he stopped talking and they listened to the band play. _Nearer, to Thee, My God_ was drifting over their heads, the string quartet refusing to put down their instruments as the deck began to list slightly to one side.

Beautiful ship, so much longer than the Empire State Building was tall, so much grander than any ship in Alfred's New York harbour, slowly slipping down into the black water... Every bit of of resentment he'd felt three days ago about her luxury and her grandeur felt like a lead weight around his neck, just something else trying to drag them all further and further into the deep.

"_It hurts..._" Arthur breathed after several moments, his arms still pinned relentlessly to his sides as he refused to buckle. His voice was hoarse and would not rise above a whisper, but it wouldn't break or tremble. _"I can feel them. I can already feel them drowning..._"

"Please hurry," Alfred said, letting go of the shorter man and quickly grabbing his arm, forcing Arthur to push through the standing crowd. "You can help them from the boats, just come on-!" He could help survivors, Arthur was worth more to his people alive than catatonic in the cold water. He wasn't fighting him anymore either, keeping pace as men and women began to break away from the crowd, hurrying inside and coming back out with pieces of furniture: chairs, bedding, life-reserves and extra vests, anything that looked like it would float.

Right when they reached one of the final life-boats and the crowd of people around it, Arthur suddenly lit up like the white flares bursting over their heads.

"Make way!" The Brit shouted, over-taking him in two short steps and changing the balance of power so Arthur was the one doing the dragging. "Out of my way! Get back! You know who I am so don't bloody argue!"

It was a _thing_ that people like them just had. That way of presenting themselves and speaking to their own, the way they could look a human in the eyes and earn immediate recognition regardless of the situation. Patriotism was the entire reason they existed, they were manifestations of the power to go above and beyond the call of duty, to sacrifice the few for the many and protect the self from the other.

Arthur argued his way through the crowd until they came right up to the officer charged with the impossible task of selecting who should live and who would die. When he saw Arthur coming, the man in dress whites couldn't have looked more lost and afraid if he'd started weeping on the spot.

"This boy has connections in Washington, his survival is paramount." Alfred almost _screamed_ when he heard those words come out of Arthur's mouth. "Make room, he's getting on." No!

"_Arthur-_" No! Not without him, he was not going alone and there was no way-

Arthur came around so fast with his fist that Alfred couldn't catch it. He felt a splitting pain in his jaw right next to his chin, and several of his teeth cracked against one another before he found himself on the deck. Arthur wasn't even looking at him as Alfred blinked the stars out of his eyes, another white flare making the job a lot harder as voices in the crowd started picking up.

"You two, shuffle over! Put that child in your lap, god damn it! Make room! You three climb in next, fill up those seats!" Arthur barked and his people obeyed, citizens, immigrants and tourists weeping where they stood, the rising water terrifying others. "Madame, sit down! What do you think you're-?"

"I am an old woman," with a stiff, proper British accent, "unmarried, with no children or family of which to speak." Patriotism, the willingness to die so someone else might live. Alfred barely had time to look up and see a hoop skirt and hat vanish into the crowd of men, but once he did he found Arthur's hand grabbing him by the scruff and hoisting him up. The smell of the whiskey he'd forced on him was heavy on the Empire's breath, and he practically growled his next words in Alfred's ear:

"My damned humour kept that Frog off this boat, so the only one I have left to worry about is you." Arthur was dragging him, and in the next instant there were more hands on Alfred's chest and legs, taking up his weight and forcing him along. "You tell your brother to wait for word from Westminster and you tell that French Fop he should be thankful!" No, no, no, Alfred tried to struggle but with his limbs in the air he couldn't find his strength, and with fragments of bone and tooth in his jaw he couldn't argue back. "I won't die from a thousand drowning children, Alfred, but so help me I will go down with this ship!"

He found his feet but it was too late. A third flare burst overhead and shone white light down over Arthur's stern face in front of him, and then with a shove Alfred found himself on the curved floor of a lifeboat. He scrambled up but it was too late, his gloved fingertips scraping the black sides of the ship's hull, nothing to hold or grab onto as Arthur's face hovered over him, falling back further and further away as the lifeboat dropped.

With a broken jaw he couldn't say anything. With blurring eyes he could barely see anything. So he wailed and he clawed and he watched Arthur Kirkland step back into the cold night and the company of forsaken men.

* * *

The water was rising- no, the ship was _sinking_, the ocean itself had nothing to do with it. The ocean was hovering at the same level it had been at since England had first taken to it as a conquered runt left behind by the Roman Empire. It was just as cold and dreary and unforgiving as it had been in his exploring days, and in his pirating days, and in his '_I will conquer the world so help me God'_ days.

The lower the ship sank, the harder it was for him to breathe. If he'd been at home in London it would have still been hard to breathe, but not like this. Maybe he'd be woken up by a sharp pain in his chest, or pressure over his heart, but both of those would have been manageable. But this? No, this was not manageable, he couldn't function like this. It was too much.

He was the most powerful Empire on earth and this was _far, far too much_...

His stomach was a bag of hot acid, the panic of the crowds festering in his gut. His hands were numb from cold and he hadn't even touched the water yet (_yet_). He was sweating under his hat and shaking with grief that hadn't manifested yet. He was soaking up the desperation like a sponge, the disbelief leaving him numb and struggling to walk a straight line.

The lean of the ship wasn't helping either...

People were returning to their rooms, some of them. It was uncanny and terrifying, but it was that hopeless resolve that pulled Arthur inside too.

He had to find the worst of the pain, he had to follow the burning in his lungs that was choking him as he stumbled and braced himself against the walls. The ship groaned loudly as if in protest, fighting a losing battle against the ocean. She was struggling, straining to remain upright, but it was a losing battle and they both knew it. But he had to find the worst of his shakes and pains, there had to be something he could do and as he found an empty stairwell, the answer hit him.

Screaming.

He could hear screaming.

He ran down the stairs so fast he did end up falling, tumbling down several sharp metal feet before he hit a platform and found his balance again- or near enough that he could grab the railing and let himself down. The stairs led to a door, and the door led to a hall, a hall with cold water sloshing around his ankles as he came to a sudden stop.

"_PLEASE!"_

"_Please for the love of god!"_

"_The gate!"_

"_Let us out! Mercy please!"_

A gate. There was a gate. There was a locked gate. There was a gate _and it was locked and there were people on the other-_

His heart tore, literally, physically, honestly: the muscles in his heart actually tore at the sight of them, at the fear saturating the air and echoing over metal and paint. His lungs refused to breathe and Arthur forced his limbs like a machine to obey him, splashing his way to the men and the women and the children (oh god the _children_) trapped in front of him.

It was standard procedure, third class had to be kept apart from the rest; they were dirty, often sick, they had to be ordered and counted and deloused in New York, it was typical. But this was not typical: locked gates were not typical. Something was wrong, no one would order this, this was not what these gates were for!

Arthur's hands found the cold metal rungs of the collapsible cage and his hand went out to the first face he could find- a young girl with red hair and sobbing tears. Not English- Irish, he could tell in an instant, but it didn't bloody matter to him, she was British, she was part of his Empire, she was his, she-

"Please open the gate- please, _please_-" Arthur couldn't speak, there was blood in his throat and he just nodded, mute and crippled. He stumbled to the side of the gate where it was fastened to the wall, ripping off his gloves and letting them float away in the icy water (water that was climbing up to his knees) and tried twisting the knobs, rattling the handle and pulling desperately.

"You can't let us die here!"

No, no he wouldn't he-

"Shoot it off!"

He didn't have his pistol; he'd left it in his and Alfred's room. He hadn't doubled back for it. Their part of the ship was underwater now.

"Please do something!" He kicked it, he wrenched at it, he threw his shoulder into it until that was tender and bruised. His couldn't feel his hands, not even when the sharp metal cut his fingers and slicked the tongue-and-groove slats with blood. It wouldn't open. The mechanisms were jammed, the crowd had bashed something out of place, or maybe it had just never opened to begin with, maybe they'd always been quartered off-

No, this was a new ship. This was her maiden voyage. There was no excuse for jammed and broken and not-working anythings. No. No there was no way this could be happening.

"Open- open damn you!"He grunted, slamming his palms into the gate, moving away from the jammed lock and pulling at the bars with his arms. He was shivering like mad as the green water roared in the hall and it swirled around his waist. But no. No there had to be a way-

_'British Empire, British Empire, British Empire-!'_ If there was ever a time being a nation had a purpose it should be right now, god damn it! What was a paltry gate to an empire that spanned continents!-?

"_For the love of god just bend!"_ He screamed, and he didn't know where the air came from, his heart somehow pulsing in his ears despite the fire ripping away in his chest. He coughed blood and he felt it mixing with tears. He was weeping and he couldn't stop it, not any more than he could stop the water or open the gate. With the desperation there came hands, little fingers that reached through the bars held his coat, and touched his face, and they were all so close but _too damn far_ for him to help.

"_Run!_" John yelled, pushing the nation's hands away from the bars. "Run now, the water's rising!" It was so cold, swirling around his waist-

"Go, it's too late-" Mary sobbed, and her husband George was there with his arms around her from behind, squeezing her close. There children had already been lost in the chaos and crush of the lower decks.

"_No-_"

"Hail Britannia-"

"_No, I'm not-"_

He had his foot braced on the wall next to him now, the entire corridor tilted at such a wild angle. He could look down and see the green water rising, rising, creeping and splashing and lapping at the arms and legs and torsos and necks. No, he couldn't leave, no, the pain wouldn't _let_ him leave-

"_Please get to the boats-_" There were no more boats, so even if he could open the gate, there was no more hope.

"If any of you think I'm leaving then you can just sod off!" He shouted, trying to get through to one _damned_ person on this entire ship that he wasn't going to run away. The tilt grew worse and he started shivering as the cold wrapped its way around his burning chest, the erratic beat of his heart slowing down from cold and raw stress. "There's nowhere left to run and I'm not going to bloody well make a fool of myself trying!"

He reached both arms through the bars, letting them bite into his shoulders as he strained against the gushing water. He touched Jacob's shoulder and brushed a lock of hair off Elizabeth's wet face, nodding as Marshall took off his hat and clung to the bars so he wouldn't fall back into the icy death. When Jane's face slipped under the green Arthur strained to keep his chin up. His feet left the floor, the cold gripping his shoulders as he locked hands with Thomas and let Jenny reach through the bars and wrap her arm as far around his back as she could go.

The lights flickered once, twice, then died. There was only darkness, he couldn't even see Annie's blonde hair, and Benjamin choked on the heavy salts before he ran out of space between the walls and the bars.

With one last scream and his forehead against the ceiling, the mighty Atlantic claimed Arthur Kirkland too.

* * *

**"I will go down with this ship" HEADDESK. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to insert a meme, I didn't want to, I just- ack. WHAT ELSE WAS HE SUPPOSED TO SAY? If YOU can come up with a better parting line then send it to me, until then TUMBLR TUMBLR ALL OVER MY FIC I'M SORRY.**

**Gates between Third and Second class existed on a lot of ships at this time, but on the Titanic they weren't intentionally locked to let people drown. Everything I've read stated that IF they were left locked, it was because of the severe breakdown in communication that happened between crew members (same reason why lifeboats were cast off with less than half their seats filled). **

**There's a second chapter to this that helps make the title "Southampton" make more sense, but I haven't finished it yet. I'm just tired of sitting on this thing and telling myself I've posted when I obviously haven't. **

**Hope you guys enjoyed this, and I'll see you around in Chapter 2!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Titanic Main theme, Back to the Titanic, I Need A Doctor.**

**A two-shot that took forever and a day to complete!**

* * *

_**Southampton**_

_Francis Bonnefoy_...

Springtime in Paris... Fresh, beautiful, vibrant, sunny, everything a true Frenchman could want, no? Francis was not immune to his city's charms, in fact he was probably more susceptible to them than the average citizen or foreign visitor. He had, however, hoped to spend his Spring elsewhere this year, but a crotchety little punk had beaten him to the punch.

How clever of _Monsieur_ _Kirkland_ to provide his closest and most valued enemy with an expensive ticket on an incredible ocean liner destined for a continent Francis was _very_ fond of... only to have everything about the design be completely wrong (from the crest of the company who owned the vessel, to the spelling of the fair ship's name), and unverifyable until he was right there ready to board. He had nearly been arrested by his own police, and Francis had most certainly been removed from the docks and boarding area, leaving him with a stack of luggage and a heart filled with broken dreams. He had so been looking forward to seeing Canada again too...

No matter! He had taken a ten-day tour of his northern provinces to make up for the sharp, terrible, biting disappointment of missing the new world. He'd visit Matthew again next year, maybe, or sometime this summer. All that mattered to Francis right now was that he was coming home, and wandering the streets of Paris put him back in touch with his capitol and all its European worries...

Like, for example, the headline today on the 19th of April: Fifteen-hundred dead in tragic Atlantic sinking.

"I'll take one of those." A penny for his thoughts as the English saying went, not that Francis was fond of the English, but he took his paper and found he couldn't make it all the way to his favourite little cafe. The headline was too bold, too garish, too eye-catchingly grotesque to wait that long before reading. And re-reading. And skimming the attached article. And then re-reading the two-page spread again, in greater detail.

Fifteen-hundred dead. Fifteen-_hundred_ dead. Half-empty life-boats, no ships near enough to save the bodies in the water. Three hours to sink and too many lives gone all at once…

British lives, most of them. English and Scottish and Irish mainly. But French too. American too. But the English and the Scottish and the Irish, and the English, so many English...

He didn't even have to read the name of the vessel to know the truth. He didn't want to see it, to know what had happened. He just sat down on his street in his city and felt the spring sunlight shine down over him, warm and comforting. Much, much warmer than the North Atlantic water that had swallowed Arthur's precious titan.

He sent a telegraph to Montreal, instructing Matthew to head south to New York and learn what he could as soon as possible, and to cable back to Arthur's residence in London. In the same office where he dictated and sent the telegraph, the French Republic tele_phoned_ his boss and explained that he was taking an immediate leave of absence for the next several days.

Yes, several _more_ days.

In the same afternoon he was on a train headed north to the English Channel, and the first ferry, fishing trawler or row-boat he could find was going to take him straight to the nation across the water. He had to get to Southampton, there was absolutely no alternative. If he and Alfred weren't in New York when Matthew got there, then Francis would have to find him on his own.

And the best place to start was Southampton.

* * *

It was... a quirk of their kind. Sometimes useful, usually frustrating, but undeniable just the same. They were nations, practically immortal as far as bodily harm went, but there were times that God saw fit to intervene and help them return to where they were most needed. Most deaths- shootings, hangings, stabbings, exposure, starvation, poison, electrocution, etc. Resulted in a long, dark coma before reawakening in the same place once the body was left alone. But certain others, specifically death by burning, disfiguring crush injuries, or dismemberment required a heavier hand.

There was no deep sleep after the fires of a purge, and a body that had died some other way and been burned with the rest treated it the same way. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, France had never seen it happen to someone else- that moment where the wind would blow and the ashes and dust would gather, but he'd experienced it. He knew the sensation of returning to life and pride in the centre of a city street, or a gathering of their children, or even- most terrifying, reforming from the same blackened heaps that had burned him. Truly, the most painful and terrifying deaths were by fire...

But to drown... Drowning was a fickle death, wretched and terrible like all of the others, but how it was handled depended on how it happened. A shallow pond and a boot on the back of the head would result in the sleep of death, but a drowning at sea... God did not allow his nations to remain entombed on the ocean floor.

Southampton was a sight. Black curtains, flags at half-mast, and widows, widows, hundreds of widows... Francis didn't see any of the British military around, but he didn't doubt that they were there as he left the ferry terminal but remained close to the docks. It was difficult to cope with beautiful weather and the heavy silence of the people, oppressive even for the British in general, but mustering his courage the Frenchman made short work of his business.

"Excuse me-" it was such a pain to speak in English, but he did not drift between languages as he caught the attention of the first woman _not_ in black whom he met. Really though, that was a mistake: her coat was white, but everything else- nevermind. "Please, madame, do you know where that fateful ship launched?"

Oh, the look Arthur's daughter gave him for asking such a thing. He would not have been surprised if she'd slapped him and huffed away, every inch her nation's foul temper. Instead, she pursed her thin lips tightly and pointed one gloved hand across the water, indicating which way he should go. Before he could thank her she turned her haunted eyes away from him however, and the French nation silently respected her command that he leave.

Ten days ago Francis had nearly been arrested by his own police for attempting to use a forged ticket. Now he openly flaunted Arthur's laws and climbed the tall fence keeping people away from the wharf, slinking between large pylons and stepping over rusty chains. He found steps leading him from the oiled wooden platforms down towards the lapping green of the ocean, too familiar with the smell of brine to be at all put off by it. The barnacles under his hands were part of any harbour, and there were no men around to catch him sneaking and skulking around.

Once his shoes touched the wet gravel far from the light of the sun, Francis took another deep breath of the ocean air and then cupped his mouth with both hands.

"_Arthur!_" He had to be here. This was where he'd last touched English soil, this was where he would return. "Angleterre you tardy _rosbif!_ Where are you?"

They'd made a game of this before, the game of shooting and sinking and drowning one another out on the open ocean. Spain and Portugal and the Netherlands had played this game too, so had Norway and Denmark and all the others, but France and England had made a true sport of it. They'd been the ones to really push the envelope and figure out the limits of their immortal lives.

Where was the fun in asking the Mediterranean nations what the laws of life and death were when you could tie a spare anchor around your rival's ankles and watch him as he vanished beneath the waves? If France hadn't returned the favour, the gripping fear of the old memory might have made him turn around and forget what he was here for.

"_England!_" But he had to be here, and France wasn't going to give up. If God's winds wouldn't bring the Nation back home, then God's waters would do it for him. "Arthur answer me!" Today was the 19th, the ship had gone down on the eve of the 15th, four days would be long enough for him to make it here, right? Maybe he was too early...

_'No, when he sunk me off the Haitian coast I made it back in a week, four days is long enough!_'

"I know you're _he__-e__re!_" Adding a sing-song tone to the last word, Francis forced himself to smile although there was nothing to grin at. Hiking along the green water and gravelly coast, the white sun was slowly drifting behind grey clouds, a foul wind picking up as the Frenchman cursed and wished he'd brought his cane with him. It would have made it easier to navigate the rough and rocky land, every sudden dip or sharp outcropping under the harbour reminding him of the man he was looking for. Of course his coast would be just as unkind as his humour.

It took an hour of unsavoury thoughts before Francis ran out of available coast for his search, the water rising against a rocky bluff that had been built over by the industrial harbour. He'd been wandering inland the entire time however, so he took solace in the fact that he'd been wandering further from where Arthur was most likely to make landfall. Turning back the way he'd come, his shoes were ruined and he'd sliced his hand open on one particularly unforgiving piece of rock, but he was on his way with sopping pants and shaky steps.

He... was going to stay out all night if he had to. Evening was already approaching and a quick check of his pocket watch said it was quarter past five as he walked along the water, but he wasn't about to leave, not yet. He was cold but it wasn't that bad, and his feet were sore but he could live with that. His hand was the worst thing he had to worry about but his handkerchief had been long enough to wrap around the stubborn, stinging wound. His thirst could wait too. All of it could wait, he just wanted to do one more sweep before...

"Ah..." Before he... found him... "There you are..."

It was not Venus rising from the sea. Although the dying rays of the sun were golden across the water, and the endless, even sigh of the waves caused white foam to froth and stick along the rocks, it still wasn't beautiful like those old renaissance paintings.

It was a body. It was a pale, bloated corpse with fish-eaten trousers and a spindly mop of yellow hair. Face down in the shallow waters it barely looked human. It wasn't alive, whatever it was, not yet, but the man on the shore quickly scrambled down across the sharp, black gravel until he was sloshing around in the frigid ocean. He grabbed the soaked shoulders of the jacket and was thankful for the stench of salt that covered the stink he'd otherwise have to deal with. Better salt than rot.

"Arthur?" Too soon, he knew, but Francis repeated the name several times as he dragged and hauled the heavy body out of the waves, scrambling up the jagged stones before he reached a patch that was nearly dry. He pushed the body over onto its back and then looked down, only at that moment realizing that it might not be Arthur Kirkland at all.

Oh wait, those eyebrows. Nevermind, this was definitely him. Four days in the water meant that his face was otherwise unrecognizable, and as soon as Francis confirmed for himself who it was, he swiftly untied the handkerchief from around his hand and draped it over the swollen lips and bloated tongue. He didn't want to see the expanded white cheeks peppered from fish bites, or the deathly pale pallor of the stretched and frozen skin. For a moment the Frenchman hesitated, and then he carefully drew one hand back through the tangled yellow hair clinging to the body's scalp, biting his tongue when several strands came away and clung to his fingers.

"Wake up, you fool..."

The sun was sinking slowly, like the ship that had drowned too many in water too cold to survive. The ocean stole the warmth from the spring air, and the rocks bit and cut painfully as Francis made himself slowly move and try to adjust around the corpse laying before him. At least he was out of the water, but if the pain from the rocks was bad enough for him in good health, then it only made sense to try hoisting the body's head and shoulder's up into his lap trying to spare him the additional hurt and harm.

He kept the handkerchief in place and he kept both hands on his almost-enemy's arms and shoulders. He stayed like that and he waited for the change, waited for the moment when contact with English land and English light would draw him back to his people. The British Empire was irritating and insufferable, but he was not weak: fifteen hundred dead at sea would not kill Arthur Kirkland.

When the sun was just a memory he knew that now was the time to move, but it was difficult. The water had spilled from the heavy body in his lap to cover his legs, and the winds kept picking up and blustering through the folds of his jacket no matter how tightly the buttons were done up. Getting up on his own would have been hard, but carrying a bloated body back to where-ever he could go would be impossible to manage, let alone explain if he was seen carrying a corpse.

But he had to at least try, because he was waiting on the moon now for any kind of light to see by: his matches would blow out if he lit them in the wind, and there were no gas lamps down here to guide the way back to the ladders and staircases.

"…_ng_..." So imagine his relief when he heard a weak noise break through under the foul air. The movement could have been his own hunger and exhaustion starting to play a part in the darkness, but not when one hand was sure it felt muscles bunching under soaked fabric, and then the other felt a frozen touch graze his finger.

"Arthur?" When Francis doubled over to check on him, the wretched smell had faded away to just the sick musk and brine of the ocean and damp cotton. He felt for the handkerchief's silk edge and peeled it away off the face it was protecting, but he had to wait for the moon to rise a degree or two more behind them before he could see how far the swelling had gone down.

The splash of putrid, almost warm water that washed down his thighs came with a convulsion from the drowned corpse, and Francis's arms helped the body flip half-way onto its side. There was no air in water-logged lungs, just sour brine that poured from grey lips. Cold hands clawed at his legs and one grabbed his jacket, looking for warmth or maybe something to strike, and then with a gurgling breath: a cough.

"Hnn…g...!" And then another cough, and another, each one expelling more water and demanding more air as Francis kept a hand on his back, rubbing when he could and pounding when the coughs turned too shallow to do their job. His other hand was wrapped up in clammy fingers, and the more Arthur breathed the more his body started to warm itself, to heat up and live again.

"_Oh, God…"_

"Breathe, Arthur, breathe…"

"_No_…" Was it grief that kept him down? Was it the numbing cold? Francis could barely stand it, but he made himself sit there and just hold the body limp and suffering in his lap, tolerance coming from somewhere as the Nation he'd come so far to find writhed on the ground and barely moved his head enough to vomit down the side of Francis' leg.

"Ah, thank you…" The concession was that it was not in the middle of his lap, but it was very small. "I shall have to borrow clothes for my return to Paris…" Arthur didn't respond, not even a grunt or swear. "Can you hear me?" It was a valid question.

"_Wh… Where…?_" He was simply overwhelmed then, very well.

"Southampton." And now, despite how horrible Arthur's condition was, they needed to leave this miserable spot of shoreline.

"_No…_"

"Let me help you, Arthur: we need to leave." It was too cold, the wind was too strong: if a squall came blowing up from the south Francis would curse his own weather along with Arthur's for letting it happen. "Arthur…?"

"…_ugh_..._!_"

He was in pain as Francis rudely pulled him up, swinging the Englishman's sodden body onto his back and struggling with the rocks and wind to rise to his own feet. But France was healthy, and France was strong, and England would recover because the British Empire was vast and powerful. They were rivals, but on this day they were not enemies.

An enemy would not have carved such a wretched tear in his salt and vomit-stained trousers trying to find the way back up to the surface. He would not have bled French blood on rocky English shores for someone he truly hated, no more than the Empire on his back would have tolerated being hoisted like a bag of flower and recklessly carried up from ancient sea shore to abandoned industrial dock.

His charge had recovered just enough of himself that when Francis left him to sit in the moonlight, he was taking deep, steady breaths: he even complained in his miserable way when Francis brought back a heavy clamp and used that to cut through the chain holding the gates closed. He could climb back out the way he'd climbed in, but he would not leave the fool he'd broken in to find in the first place.

"This is… Southampton…" His voice was stronger when Francis remembered the flask in his coat pocket and pulled that out, making Arthur take a mouthful to warm himself up in the cold wind.

His face was no longer horrific. One cheek was still bloated, but his lips were nearly back to normal and his tongue was working. There was blood slowly weeping from cuts and bites in his skin, but his soaked clothes were heavy with water, and he still stank of death when they were too close. His hair would grow back in, it would thicken properly after a few weeks, maybe less.

His green eyes were clear when he half-stood with an arm around Francis' shoulders to keep him up right, but the sorrow in them was deep and not quite his own.

"We might catch one last train to London tonight." Or if not, they could perhaps hire a carriage: it would be expensive but the Empire could afford it, he was sure.

"No… this is Southampton…" He kept relentlessly repeating those words as if they meant something more to him than Francis could connect to. "This is… where they lived…"

But then it made sense. The widows, the weeping, the black curtains and the silent streets… Fifteen hundred dead, but how many were the fathers and brothers of Southampton?

"Then we will stay here, there is a hotel."

"No…" Why not? What was he objecting to now? The way they walked was slow and staggering, England forcing legs that couldn't bear him to move and prop his sagging body up with France's help. But by the time they stopped again with Francis beginning to glare at his mysterious ways, his companion was already standing straighter. "Take me… to the church."

"Stop making sense, you fool, it makes it harder to hate you." Because the church did make sense. At the next sturdy wall they passed along the quiet boulevard Francis made him stand on his own this time, undoing the buttons on his own jacket and pulling it off before swinging it around the other nation's shivering body. He needed the warmth more than Francis did.

The house of worship they found was small, but its doors were unlocked. There was no sermon, only candles.

Many candles.

And in the glow of mourning lamps there were the bowed heads and whispers of sorrow from the ones left behind with no reason and little hope.

They were approached by a pastor in black and armed with a stern sense of disapproval, but with a lie that wasn't a lie and a fib that God would forgive in this private space, he explained it all away.

"His brother and his family were on board: even the children were lost." To account the grief-struck look on the Empire's face. "He threw himself into the harbour tonight from grief. Please, let him pray." And as simply as that, disapproval melded into empathy and concern, and with the whispered promise of garments not revolting and reeking from the water, the pastor vanished into the near silence as two nations knelt in God's house.

"Southampton…" Arthur whispered, head down on his hands resting on the pew, body trembling because the Empire was in a state of shock and grief. "So many lives… from Southampton…"

"Pray, my friend." And tomorrow they would hear from Matthew, and they would know if Alfred had survived or perished for a time in the cold.

For now there was only Francis' hand on Arthur's back, waiting for the Empire to come back to himself. He would wait all night if he had to…

"_Southampton…_"

_**Fin.**_

* * *

**Why did France find out so late? The Titanic sank on April 15****th**** but it took the Carpathia three more days to reach New York with survivors, and there was no solid information until they got there (according to Wiki, people in New York thought the steamer was **_**towing**_** the Titanic into port). They docked at night on April 18****th****, so newspapers wouldn't have much of a story until the 19****th****.**

**Now bleh! That took months and months to finish for no reason at all! Here we are with the completed two-shot though, so thank you for reading!**


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